


Answering Howl

by orphan_account



Category: Wolf's Rain
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:47:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24566383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: In another time and another place, Tsume hears a familiar voice.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 19





	Answering Howl

“Leave me alone!”

Tsume paused, lifting his head. The piercing cry, obviously made by someone young and frightened, stopped him in his tracks instantly. He looked back, but found only an empty street behind him, and not a soul in sight. Then, a scattering of muted, angry voices drew his eyes to a chain-link fence, bordering an alleyway he’d passed only a few yards back. 

The sun was going down, and this was not a good part of town to linger in. Tsume’s rational mind urged him to keep walking, and ignore what wasn’t his business. He was just passing through, after all. No reason to get involved in a situation that could only mean trouble. It was a simple mugging, most likely, or some strung-out punk getting a beating that was coming to him. Not his concern.

But his guts – his instincts – told him to turn around and go back. 

Scaling the rusting fence was easy, and following the raised voices, easier still. As Tsume made his way through the clutter and debris that had accumulated in the narrow space, every word from the kid in trouble – a boy, he was sure now – sounded sharp and clear in his ears. 

“Get away! You’ll be sorry for this!” The boy was trying to sound angry now, and would have, if it weren’t for the edge of near-panic to his voice.

Tsume picked up his pace. Over another fence, through a drainage channel, and around the perimeter of a condemned building. The glass from broken beer bottles and plastic syringes crunched underfoot.

How had the kid’s voice carried so far? Tsume had come half a mile at least, and only now were the other voices, older and threatening, becoming more distinct. Why could he hear him? The roar of nearby traffic, barking dogs, and a blaring stereo all should have drowned the boy out. 

But they hadn’t. 

“Let go of me!  _ Let go of me! _ ” 

He was getting close now – just a few more turns, just a few more meters…

Tsume came to the end of the alley, to a large, empty lot surrounded on three sides by chain-link fences, and the crumbling concrete wall of a warehouse on the fourth. Trash and filth were littered over the cracked pavement, and the late afternoon sun basked everything in a sickly orange glow. 

And there he was.

It was a skinny runt of a kid, junior high student probably, who was wearing clothes that were too clean and too clean-cut for this kind of neighborhood. His face was almost girlishly delicate, framing two big, scared tawny-gold eyes. A thuggish, bearded man in his late twenties had pinned him up against the dirty concrete wall, hands fisted in his shirt, and furious. He was built like a gorilla, one thick forearm as wide as the boy’s neck. Four other men flanked the aggressor, their leader most likely, waiting expectantly.

“Lousy, lying little  _ brat _ !” the leader barked, pulling the kid forward just enough to slam him back hard against the concrete, making him yelp. “Nobody crosses me, you little  _ maggot _ !  _ Nobody _ !”

“You deserved it, you coward!” The boy growled back, still trying to put on a brave front. “I hope the cops track that money back to you, and you get your fat ass tossed in prison for the rest of your miserable life!” 

“Kid doesn’t know when to shut up,” Tsume muttered to himself grimly, ducking back into the alley to consider his options. The big gorilla was being more vocal than physical in his confrontation right now, but that gang was out for blood. It was going to turn ugly soon, and the little runt wasn’t doing himself any favors by provoking them.

On the other hand, five against one didn’t equal odds Tsume was comfortable with, and they were probably armed on top of that. This wasn’t a fight he could win on his own, and it would be damn foolish to try.

“It’s your own fault,” he whispered, watching the boy squirm uselessly in his attacker’s grip. “Getting yourself mixed up with that kind of crowd. What the  _ hell _ were you thinking?”

He shouldn’t be here, shouldn’t even be entertaining the possibility of putting himself in harm’s way for some anonymous, loudmouth,  _ pipsqueak _ . 

But he  _ knew _ those guileless, innocent eyes, even if he didn’t have a clue who the kid was. They’d haunt him for the rest of his life if he turned tail and retreated now. Besides, Tsume reasoned, he was not the kind of man who made a habit of displaying cowardice, even to himself.

He didn’t have time to waste. If he could cause some kind of distraction, and lure the other thugs away from the kid – 

“Just gut him, boss.” A nasty-looking knife with a serrated blade had appeared in the hands of one of the flunkies, and was too quickly passed up to the leader. The boy went still at the sight of it, face pale, as if he’d finally realized how much trouble he was in.

The gorilla laughed, taking up the blade in one crude fist. “That shut you up quick, didn’t it?” He brought the point up under the kid’s chin and pressed upwards, forcing him to expose his throat. “You gonna try be smart with me now, pretty boy? Eh?”

The only response was a desperate whimper that made Tsume’s hands ball into fists. 

It wasn’t enough for the thug, who brought the knife’s edge precariously close to the boy’s jugular. “Answer me!” he bellowed. “Beg for your worthless life, you little  _ bastard _ !”

Screw the distraction. Tsume was starting the fight  _ now _ .

They didn’t notice him until he’d crossed the lot, and knocked two of the thugs out cold. One thug, Tsume could chalk up to the element of surprise, but two was unexpected. Maybe they were amazingly thickheaded, he considered, as Thug #3 blocked his left hook. Or maybe the adrenaline rush had given him an edge. 

The kid caught on fast, though. He took advantage of the commotion to grab his inattentive captor’s knife hand, and bite down on it. Hard. 

The knife clattered against the ground.

“Your boss has a girly scream,” Tsume taunted Thug #3, as he watched the kid make a beeline for the open alleyway, leaving the cursing gorilla clutching his bleeding arm. 

Tsume ducked the responding punch, saw an opening, and delivered a hard kick to his opponent’s leg. It connected with the left kneecap, and a definite crunching sound followed. As the thug went down, Tsume shook his head. “I was wrong. You  _ both _ have girly screams.”

“Go after the brat.” The leader hissed to his last flunky. “I’ll take care of the leather freak myself.”   
  
”Sure you will,” Tsume smirked, bringing his hands back up. “You couldn’t even handle a scrawny kid like that. What chance do you think you’ve got against someone who actually knows how to fight?”

The gang leader scowled, retrieving his knife. “That little whelp’s caused me a lot of trouble today. Who are you supposed to be? His big brother? His pimp?”

Tsume snorted in disgust. “I’m responsible for him.”

The conversation ended there, as the big man attacked, knife point first. The kid had done very little damage, Tsume noticed, as he sidestepped the opening swipe. The man’s arms like sledgehammers, and he used them with vicious force. Fortunately, the stupid brute’s rage was affecting his speed. Strong as he was, he could only manage glancing blows with his left, and every swing of the blade missed completely. 

It was a lousy fight, Tsume decided, mostly a matter of keeping out of the gorilla’s way until he wore himself out. He started worrying more about the kid and that last thug in the alley, as things progressed. The runt hadn’t been in good shape to begin with. Who knew how far he’d gotten? Finally, the gorilla paused long enough for Tsume to get behind him, and smash his face forward into the side of the building. It didn’t take anything else. 

He paused over the prone form of the man only long enough to grab the knife. Tsume hadn’t heard a word from the kid during the entire fight, and that couldn’t be a good sign. 

As he entered the alley, the effect of the fights started to hit him. Tsume paused to catch his breath, with the sinking realization that the path ahead of him split off at a juncture he hadn’t noticed on the way here. “Kid!” he hollered, as loud as he could manage. “Talk to me!”

Nothing.

Tsume pressed on, doggedly. He had to see this through, even if the worst had happened. He’d gone through too much already not to. “Kid! If you’re still alive out there, do yourself a fucking favor and  _ say something _ !” 

“Mister?” For the second time that day, Tsume turned around at the sound of the voice. But this time, the boy was standing right there, looking up at him timidly with those oddly familiar golden eyes. “Are you okay?” 

Not dead. Not dead at all. Tsume resisted the urge to hug him.

“Yeah,” he smiled, lowering his voice. “Yeah, I’m okay.” There was a battered dumpster upended a few meters back, big enough to hide a little runt who didn’t want to be found. Tentatively, he put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “What about you?” 

“I-I’m okay too, Sir.” The kid seemed to relax a bit, but still looked at him with unvoiced suspicion. He couldn’t really blame him. 

“Don’t “Sir” me. It’s Tsume,” he corrected, taking a seat on the ground, his back against the building behind him. His legs were killing him, and his feet were starting to throb. The boy settled for leaning up against the opposite wall, staring at him. 

“Tsume.” The name was repeated with a nod. “You saved me, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, I guess.” It was a pretty damn embarrassing notion, now that he thought about it. 

“Why?” The kid obviously didn’t mean for it to come out so bluntly, and stared at the ground nervously.

There wasn’t any sort of reasonable answer that Tsume could think of, so he went with the obvious. “You were in trouble and needed help. I didn’t mind the fight.”

“Oh,” he looked up, sheepishly. “Thanks.” 

Tsume wanted to ask the kid what it was, exactly, that he’d saved him from, but figured the question wouldn’t be appreciated. “You have a name?”

The boy hesitated. “Matsudaira Oburi,” he said at last. “But everybody calls me ‘Toboe’ because I used to wail a lot when I was a kid.”

“Toboe - ‘Howling,’ huh?” Tsume chuckled. “With that set of lungs, no wonder.”

The boy’s eyes widened incredulously. “You heard me?”

“Yeah.” Tsume shifted position. “I’m surprised no one else did, the way you were shouting down that overgrown Neanderthal.”

It was like a dam bust. “And you took on all of them – all five of them at once!” Toboe laughed. “I couldn’t believe it when I saw you! I thought you were a ghost, or my imagination or – or something!” 

Tsume found his hand being seized up and squeezed a little too tight between the boy’s skinny hands. His big eyes were shining. 

“I don’t know how I can ever thank you for this. When they cornered me, I thought I was done for!” Tsume pulled his hand away, but Toboe kept up his babbling. “I’ve never seen anybody move so fast! It was incredible!”

“I think I liked you better when you were quiet,” Tsume sighed.

Toboe ignored him. “I think they really would have killed me. It was so lucky you were there!”

“I don’t think luck had anything to do with it,” Tsume muttered under his breath. He got up, stretching a bit to get the blood flowing again.

“Huh?” Toboe had run out of breath.

Tsume only shrugged nonchalantly. He didn’t feel like explaining to the boy about his personal notions of karma and destiny. And Toboe didn’t need to know his face conjured visions of a dying city, and snow stained dark with his own blood. Or about the old dreams of lunar flowers, too beautiful for this world.

The kid smelled like family. That was enough.

“Come on, runt.” He punched him lightly, affectionately, on the shoulder. “Let’s get you home.”

The boy frowned in annoyance. “Don’t call me  _ runt _ .”

  
  


The End


End file.
